To what extent should magazines be held responsible for the social ramifications of the
representations they offer?
Magazines often give unrealistic examples of people as their main image. For example, on many young teen magazines, male or female, then main image is often a super slim celebrity who has been edited and airbrushed to look more attractive for the cover of the magazine. A young teen girl would not know this and would be convinced that this is was she ought to look like, influencing her to do things to her body which are completely unnecessary for her age like dieting or excessive make up. Again with males on magazines, they are always portrayed as tall and muscular which could make young males feel insecure.
A lot of the features in magazines refer to how to get a Perfect 'X'. This will put pressure on the readers as they will then try to become more like what the magazine is telling them is perfect. Magazines have the ability to mould young readers to whatever they like. For example they could simply make a feature on what is 'in and out' and the youth will more than likely follow it.
The way the magazines represent the modern teenage girl, who for this example imagine is the target audience for the magazine, is pretty much whatever they want it to be. The main focus for most magazines aimed at this audience feature mostly celebrities and gossip. The girls will see these celebrities as role models which will influence how they act, dress and even life goals and aspirations as seeing these glamorous celebrities in magazines with loads of money could influence what the reader wants to be. The magazines are pressuring the kids to grow up way faster than they ought to but promoting use of make-up, hair products, and even in some cases plastic surgery due to the excessive amount of inappropriate role models the magazines choose to feature. Magazines Feature a lot of quizzes, some of which have such titles as "are you snogging enough?" which is hardly relevant to the life of a potentially young female.
In conclusion i feel that magazines are to be held responsible for social ramifications of the representations they offer because they make unrealistic claims on what people should look like and mould the younger generation to be way too active with things like make-up far too early than they should be. then again alot of magazines are created to give tips for education or real life possible situations that could be concerning the reader.